User blog:RRabbit42/Where do you get your ideas?
Anyone that has been professionally published in one manner or another, such as novelist, screenplay writer, or writer for a TV show, has probably been asked the question, "How do you get your ideas?" Many times, the answer is, "I don't know. They just come to me." It's not an answer people expect to hear. They want a more concrete answer so they can be encouraged to try and duplicate some of that author's success. But sometimes, that's actually how it happens. I don't have a concrete answer, either, but I do have some tips and ideas about how you can get your own ideas. I'll share what I know and we'll see if it helps point anyone in the right direction. I may update this blog later, but we'll start with what I can think of right now. # Read books and watch TV shows and movies. Artists study the paintings, drawings and sculptures of other artists to learn techniques and to find styles they like. People that want to write need to read what others have written for the same reasons. If the screenplay or script is available, those can be useful, too, to see how the story can be condensed into a version that actors can then perform in different ways. # Write fan fiction. Part of the work is already done for you. When you pick something well-established like Star Trek or My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, characters and their roles in that world have been defined for you so you don't have to spend time coming up with either of those. Then it's a little easier to come up with a starting point. It could be something like "Star Trek has warp drive, transwarp drive and quantum slipstream drive. What if there was something better than any of those and what would people do to get their hands on it?" # Adapt an existing story. Find a story you like, go through it and make notes about the characters and plot points, then see if you could modernize it or tell the same story in a different setting. West Side Story is William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet updated to take place in 1950s New York City with street gangs instead of feuding families. # Keep a notepad and pen nearby whenever you can, including next to your bed. After you get a basic idea about something in your story, you may not use it right away or you may decide it would work better in a different story so you take it out and save it for later. Don't be surprised if all of the sudden, you start thinking about about it for what looks like no reason at all. That's your subconscious pushing that idea back into your conscious mind after it's worked on it in the background. When you get woken up with an idea, immediately write it down. Don't trust you'll remember it in the morning. You might not or you'll partially remember it and whatever you come up with after you wake up probably won't be the same as if you worked off the notes you took at the time. # Write the stories you want to read. If you're not finding the kind of stories you'd want to read, take a shot at writing them yourself. Make the first one a story that's only you will read. Put whatever you want to in it and don't show it to anyone else so you won't be hindered by their opinions. Artists do the same thing with sketchbooks that they don't show to anyone. # Ask "What if...?" and "What about...?" Many of the ideas above incorporate these, where you look at things from a different angle, like the example of "What if there was a better spaceship drive that everyone wanted?" The last one was the basis of a writing competition I suggested last year. I already had a basic idea of what I wanted to write before I suggested it, and the idea came from reading some graffiti at a state park which said, "The sea will tell you things". My idea was, "What if this meant more than just learning about the sea while sailing and instead the sea could actually talk to you?" Who personifies the sea? Neptune and Poseidon. All right. Pick one and go. There isn't a magic formula for making story ideas appear, but as you can see, there are things you can do that will encourage them to appear. ; July 7 update Your subconscious can be a tremendous help in generating ideas but you have to give it room and time to work on things in the background before it lets you know what they are. It can be your muse if you let it. For example, I have a story I'm using to teach myself how to write better. I wrote the ending about a year ago but recently came up with a new chapter to end the story. There's a few general ideas of what I want to put in but I hadn't started on it yet. Then I started writing on a different part that I wanted to slip in at a different point. A while later, I'd get little thoughts popping into my head at random times that let me see it could lead into the ending I wanted. As more of them appeared, they tied into other plot points from much earlier in the story and began to provide explanations for those plot points I hadn't included before. They're going to make the ending much better. So how did this start happening? I think the answer lies in time, boredom and writer's block. I'm not in a hurry to finish this story. I don't plan on it ever being published. It's just for me, so I work on it when I want. In this way, I give my subconscious time to work on things in the background. Giving yourself time to be bored is another part of it. If you're not trying to fill every second of your day with an activity that demands your full attention, the gaps in between are chances for the subconscious to get to work or present an idea to you. For me, lawn mowing qualifies because it isn't a difficult task. If you're constantly reading things on your phone or playing games on it, try turning that off for a half hour so you've got an opportunity to work on something else. Believe it or not, writer's block can be useful in these situations. As long as you're not facing a deadline or an obligation like you got paid ahead of time or will get paid/graded when your writing's turned in, instead of treating writer's block as a wall that's keeping you from writing, look at it as a signal you should work on something else for a while. It can be a different section of the story, a completely unrelated story or something that isn't writing. Category:Blog posts